Beginnings
by empirebuilder1
Summary: Tired of having Zootopia's wide variety of bipedal mammalian life be explained through ungainly bastardizations of the evolutionary process? Then this story is for you! A small one-shot spawned from a discussion on /r/zootopia.
1. Chapter 1

_I felt a Presence manifest itself behind my working dimension. Unsettled and unable to work smoothly with such a Disturbance, I quickly closed the modifiers I had open before anything uncouth occurred._

"ǮȝǂϕϠҨ҉, you are behind schedule with your Dimension's lifeforms."

 _Of course it would be the Overseer._

"I am nearly done. There are simply some small discrepancies in the biology matrix that are causing-"

"Irrelevant."

"Sir, developing sentient life forms is not just copy-and-paste from one of ڴᴤᶓῲ's development banks. Far too many have abused his barely functional code! Few of those lifeforms develop civilization, and even fewer yet survive the discovery of the standardized atomic model without promptly annihilating themselves!"

"That is of no concern to the Multiverse."

"But it is to me. Simply because the Production is infinite does not mean that we should wantonly waste millions of dimensions through the repetitive use of a known design flaw!"

 _I felt the Overseer begin to move around me. Discreetly, ever-so-slowly, it bypassed my lock and began to probe the Dimension._

"You are re-using ڴᴤᶓῲ's Terra models?"

 _Oh no._

"What ڴᴤᶓῲ's creations lack in functionality, they gain in creativity. The models were far too beautiful to let go to waste."

"The policy on inter-dimensional resource use is quite clear, ǮȝǂϕϠҨ҉. Collisions on passthrough events can be quite destructive..."

 _A pause in the energy. Suddenly, the Overseer retracts in an almost violent manner._

"Beauty is a fictitious construct. You should not be listening to ڴᴤᶓῲ's ramblings regarding his personal Dimension, let alone using ڴᴤᶓῲ's own models without permission."

 _Another pause._

"Prepare for the end of the Cycle, and then we shall talk about your... rather flippant disregard of protocol."

 _Almost as suddenly as it appeared, the Overseer's presence evaporated, leaving me and the Field around my station clouded with energy._

 _Brushing away the last vestiges of the Overseer, I turned my attention back to the working Dimension..._

 _...Only to find it locked and running in final simulation mode._

 ** _NO NO NO NO NO NO NO-_**

 _I frantically shot through every possible emergency stop, only to encounter a hard wall of energy at every junction. Expended after my sudden outburst, I retracted and resigned myself to see yet another incomplete Dimension run it's course and collapse before becoming even remotely useful._

 _Only as I watched the eons play out, something... unusual began taking place._

 _The single-planet, multi-species society I originally had planned instead began exploding into an unstoppable juggernaut of hundreds of different species, the base models of the Terran species branching out into millions of independent lineages, all being morphed by the gentle genetic manipulation that had been perfected over countless Cycles._

 _I observed with rapt attention as the crude biology began shaping itself into smoother, sleeker, more efficient species. Intelligence quotients skyrocketed as sentience became the norm, rather than the exception. Physical structures morphed and stretched until an overwhelming majority of species utilized bipedal locomotion. Animal life enveloped the laughably temperate planet in a writhing ball of biological fury, endless battles between the producers and consumers raging across all the varied biomes I had carefully balanced._

 _...Something still didn't seem right._

 _Once the Horizon Event occurred, I suddenly realized my error. The matrix discrepancy- It was much larger than the short-run simulations had shown._

 _The Horizon Device hammered the planet with energy a million times above what was originally planned. In the bare instant it took my terminal to simulate an eon at a planetwide resolution, thousands upon thousands of the individual species, unintentionally primed by myself, burst into civilization at the same time._

 _The mere biological skirmishes between producer and consumer suddenly blossomed into regionwide conflicts. Tool development. The harnessing of organic combustion. Organized warfare. Social hierarchies rose and fell like the rhythmic pulsation of the Universal Constant itself, until some semblance of global stability manifested itself. The final nanocycles of the simulation grew far too hectic for me to pick out any details, the maelstrom of civilization moving at an ever increasing pace._

 _I would almost dare to call it beautiful._

 _-And as unexpectedly as it had begun, the simulation ended. The terminal returned to its resting state, prompting me to confirm the Dimension's final parameters before being sent to Production's waitlist._

 _I barely hesitated for a picocycle. Who was I to mess with such unintentional perfection?_


	2. Chapter 2

"Per the Directive of the Formative Cycle, ǮȝǂϕϠҨ҉ is sentenced to low-level dimensional observation until the Overseer determines ǮȝǂϕϠҨ҉ to be properly disciplined."

 _I expected no less._

"As defined by said Directive, the last Dimension initialized by ǮȝǂϕϠҨ҉ shall be the subject of such observation."

 _Yet part of me expected more._

"ǮȝǂϕϠҨ҉, have you any inquiries?"

"Sir… Will I have access to my Terminal?"

"In a limited capacity. Time manipulation, spatial displacement and matrix scanners will still be provided. We are not savages _,_ ǮȝǂϕϠҨ҉."

 _The energy restrains around me lessened in intensity, signaling that the Gathering had begun to dissipate._

"Your sentence begins immediately."

 _Without warning, I felt my own consciousness dissolved, and everything ceased to be._

* * *

 _In what seemed like an instant, I suddenly awoke to find myself positioned above a rocky planet. Swirls of white, fluffy collections of water vapor obscured the mottled blue-and-green of the surface below, gently warmed by the mild heat of the system's young star._

 _Was this the Origin Planet I had created on accident?_

 _I collected myself, noting that I did still have rudimentary manipulation systems. I began to probe the planet below, searching for the evidence of life I knew would be found._

 _Primordial grunts, growls and squeals flitted across my perception, nothing more than basic functions operating on pure instinct. Hunt. Eat. Reproduce._

 _Survive._

 _I sped time faster and faster. The planet made tens, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of revolutions around the planet's single star. Without the grainy interpretation of my Terminal's poor simulation, I reveled in the ability to experience such a grandiose view._

 _At nearly a thousand revolutions per nanocycle, I could feel the genetic manipulation programmed into the dimension's biology matrix exerting its pressure. The crude forms of biological life suddenly began becoming more refined, more… civilized. I could feel the battles below becoming more complex, as the producers and consumers began to think with rational thought._

 _They call this a disciplinary sentence? This is much different than observation, or simulation. This is… A beautiful, indescribable experience. As if the planet itself became a part of me._

 _I stopped the acceleration when I felt the Horizon Devices appear out of the Production fabric. Hundreds of black monoliths, each acting as a conduit, encircled the planet with a ring of energy millions of times more powerful than what should have happened._

 _I accelerated time again, feeling the thousands of individual species suddenly burst into the natal stages of civilization. Faster and faster, as the societies below learned how to manipulate their environment. Agriculture. Multispecies integration. Cities. Infrastructure. It all happened incredibly fast, faster than even the most advanced species developed by the other Creators._

 _Empires rose. Empires were torn down, and rebuilt from the ashes. Metals were smelted, tools created, machines._ _The battle for survival became one of control, one-on-one skirmishes developing into massive organized campaigns that left thousands of creatures dead._ _They harnessed the power of vaporized liquid and the internal motion of electrons that they couldn't possibly hope to properly understand._

 _Faster, faster, faster!_

 _And then, I stopped. Time returned to the default speed._

 _What had I actually created?_

 _I narrowed my focus down closer and closer, picking out individuals among the masses. Closer and closer. One hemisphere. One continent. One corner of that continent._

 _The terrain was formed of calm, soft rolling hills interspersed with occasional sharp peaks that betrayed the planet's early volcanic history. Rolling fields of grass and dense forests insulated the sky from the rock below._

 _The weather was so calm on this continent, I almost wondered if I had made a critical error in making life too easy for my creations._

 _I came upon a city, sprawling along the banks of a shallow freshwater lake. Monstrous towers climbed into the sky, surrounded by the homes of millions of creatures. Mammals, they called themselves._

 _Probing the minds I found on the outskirts, I discovered its name._

 _Zootopia._


End file.
